Scotland's largest police force yesterday reported the first rise in crime for seven years, prompting fears that it could herald a nationwide trend. The latest annual figures compiled by Strathclyde Police show overall crime increased by 4.5 per cent last year, with notable rises in violent crimes. The statistics follow year-on-year decreases in Strathclyde since 1992, and a similar downward trend has been reported by the country's other seven forces. Chief Constable John Orr, discussing his annual report, blamed a lack of funds for leaving his force under-strength and claimed 350 more officers were needed for a full complement. [continues 585 words]
Call For Action By Townspeople In Scotland's 'Smack Capital' As Addict Numbers Soar The explosion in heroin use in the town described as the "smack capital" of Scotland is worse than previously feared, it was disclosed yesterday. One in five men aged 21 who are registered with the main medical practice in Fraserburgh are heroin addicts. A conference on drug abuse in the fishing town was also told that one in seven women of the same age is also hooked on the opiate. [continues 618 words]
"HAPPY hours" are under threat from Glasgow council, which is considering banning cheap alcohol promotions in the city's pubs. Alcohol campaign groups believe that happy hours encourage binge drinking. However, the council would have to seek the approval of the Scottish parliament for a by-law to enforce the ban. Alcohol campaign groups hope this could lead to Scotland-wide legislation banning happy hours. Councils in the west of Scotland are campaigning to put licensing issues on the parliament's agenda. Glasgow council has been joined by ten other licensing authorities in lobbying MSPs to strengthen the licensing powers of councils to give them more control. [continues 503 words]
Top Policeman Says Young Dealers And Loan-Shark Victims Need Help To Beat Their Problems A senior police officer yesterday called for a national amnesty for schoolchildren who are dealing in drugs or find themselves the victims of peddlers and loan sharks. Chief Superintendent Stewart Davidson called for the radical action in an attempt to curb the growing influence of dealers in Scottish schools and to free pupils from their grip. Mr Davidson said there was increasing evidence that children as young as 12 were too frightened to go to school because they owe money to pushers. He called for the setting up of an intermediate agency and a phone helpline to enable youngsters to shake off the menace of dealers. [continues 962 words]
Police Battle To Contain Spread Of Drug In Capital Heroin is becoming a major problem among the middle classes as well as the less well-off, it has emerged after a record haul of the drug in Edinburgh. One kilogram of the class A drug, believed to be worth up to UKP400,000 in street value, was recovered in a police operation. Senior police officers believe the seizure - the biggest single haul in Edinburgh - shows how serious the heroin problem has become in the capital. It is also being seen as proof that a growing number of people from all backgrounds are switching from so-called soft drugs such as cannabis to heroin. [continues 607 words]
Sir, - I strongly object to the assertion in your report (23 April) that I retracted an earlier statement on the decriminalisation of cannabis, which I made at a conference in Edinburgh. I did not retract, I explained. What I explained was that a speaker had said that it was time for a fresh look at the cannabis issue, and said it might be time to decriminilise its use. In asking a question, I had agreed it was time for a fresh, comprehensive look at drugs legalisation, with nothing ruled out and nothing ruled in. I believe this because the main legislation governing dangerous drugs is nearly 30 years old, and society has moved a long way in the interim. A reassessment is long overdue. [continues 259 words]
Poor Youngsters Who Die From Heroin 'Matter Less' Than Victims Of Ecstasy SCOTLAND cares less about poor youngsters overdosing on heroin than it does about middle class youngsters who die after taking ecstasy, the chief executive of a leading anti-drugs charity has claimed. Netta Maciver, of Turning Point Scotland, said that society cared more when a better-off, middle class youngster died after taking ecstasy than it did about youngsters from poor and socially-deprived backgrounds who were addicted to heroin. [continues 696 words]
Editorial comment IS one drug abuser's life worth more than another's? Our moral sense says no. Whether you take your text from Jesus' example in befriending prostitutes and curing lepers, or from Rabbie Burns's assertion that "a man's for a that", the message is the same: we are all equal. By this token, the death of the teenager, Leah Betts, after taking ecstasy is no more tragic than the deaths of the 80 people from heroin overdoses in Strathclyde last year. [continues 319 words]
Amelia Hill on legalising cannabis BROWNIE Mary, the woman responsible for the recent transformation of America's drug laws, died last week. The 77-year-old grandmother was an unlikely catalyst for the partial legalisation, in 1996, of marijuana in California, but her influence forced a revolution that we in Scotland have yet to confront. Mary Jane Rathburn was a strikingly ordinary woman who lived alone in a small flat in San Francisco. She retired, at 60, from her job as a waitress and began baking cakes for the young men dying of Aids in her local hosptal. [continues 802 words]
Senior police officer yesterday called for the Scottish Parliament to re-examine society's attitudes toward cannabis. Mr Tom Wood, deputy chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police, told a major drugs conference in Edinburgh he hoped Scotland's future politicians would seize the opportunity to tackle an issue which political parties had previously dodged. He said they had failed to show either the "stomach or the courage" to take up the challenge. "Individuals who have brought up the subject have been severely lambasted by the party leader," Mr Wood claimed. [continues 461 words]
Deputy Chief Constable Says His Comment Showed Support Only For Further Debate ONE of Scotland's most senior police officers yesterday supported calls for the legalisation of cannabis, only to issue a retraction within hours. Speaking at a conference on crime and substance abuse Tom Wood, the deputy chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police, endorsed an unequivocal call by a police board convener for the drug to be made legal. Councillor Pat Chalmers, who heads the Grampian Police Board, told the meeting in Edinburgh that society had only succeeded in alienating young people by its policy of condoning alcohol and tobacco while cannabis was criminalised. [continues 827 words]
THE Tory pary yesterday said it wanted to create a "drugs-free Scotland" within the next two decades. The Scottish Conservatives' deputy leader, Annatel Goldie, set the target at a press conference in Glasgow yesterday at which her party reinforced its "zero tolerance" policy on drugs. Miss Goldie, described by the Tories as the party's "drugs supremo", said that tackling the drugs plague in Scotland was one of the most urgent tasks facing the Scottish parliament. She said that the Tories were committed to introducing minimum sentences for convicted drugs dealers, to overhaul the way the legal system deals with serious drug offences through fast-track prosecution; and not to allow bail for those changed with drug dealing. [continues 374 words]
SCOTLAND'S drugs policy must be "user-friendly", the Scottish Liberal Democrats said yesterday. The emphasis had to be taken away from punishment and switched to rehabilitation. Jim Wallace, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, fired a broadside at the Government's approach, saying it was based on soundbites, not solutions. A nationwide string of rehabilitation centres should be created to keep drug offenders out of prisons, he said. However, Mr Wallace was accused of being soft on drugs by rival party leaders, who have identified the issue as a key election battleground. [continues 608 words]
SCOTTISH chief constables were last night accused of "staggering complacency" for believing police procedures already complied with human rights legislation and did not need to be reformed. Andrew Brown, the chief constable of Grampian, said yesterday he believed police in Scotland did not do anything that breached the European Convention on Human Rights. But John Scott, the convener of the Scottish Human Rights Centre (SHRC), described Mr Brown's comments as disappointing. "This is staggering complacency and It is difficult to believe they could maintain a straight face while they were saying all this," he said. [continues 427 words]
A SCOTTISH drug enforcement agency will be in place by the end of the year to "wage war" on the relentless rise in drugs crime, Henry McLeish, the Scottish home affairs minister, announced yesterday. The Government promised to invest A36 million in training and equipping 200 extra detectives to catch drug dealers and importers, doubling the specialist police manpower to combat drugs at a national level. Crime figures reveal that drugs offences have more than quadrupled in the past decade, from 7,000 to 31,500. [continues 769 words]
POLICE are passing on an anti-drugs message to children, by using cartoons on the Internet. Tayside Police have set up a fast-loading drugs information website, featuring two interactive cartoon movies The site, accessed on www.drugsaware.net, has already been nominated for an award for its innovative design. Tayside Police community officer Sergeant Fergus Storrier said: "We see great importance in targeting information at people that is easy to access. "The site carries the phone numbers of useful contacts and also numbers people can use to report drugs-related crime." [end]
THERE are two things worth spelling out immediately about the latest drugs scandal blighting British athletics. Firstly, that were Dougie Walker a surly working-class black sprinter from Brixton rather than an amiable middle-class Scot from a douce Edinburgh public school, he would unquestionably not have been treated with such kid-gloves and hush-hush mentality as displayed by his national federation last week. And secondly, that whatever the layers of smoke-screen and obfuscation devised by Walker's defence team to fight his positive dope tests, he's already joined the long list of sporting competitors whose name is inextricably linked with cheating. [continues 964 words]
ASSETS seized from wealthy drug barons may be used to help addicts kick their habit as part of a new attempt to drive criminals out of business. Home affairs minister Henry McLeish is setting up an 'enforcement group' including officials from the Lord Advocate's office, the courts, the police, procurators fiscal, and the Scottish Office, to see how confiscation laws can be strengthened, particularly in the civil courts. McLeish wants the group to look at the possibility of using the millions seized from dealers to be used to help people recover from drug addiction. [continues 239 words]
CUSTOMS officers have seized what is thought to be the biggest haul of smuggled tobacco in Scotland. The surveillance operation which began in England netted five million cigarettes, the equivalent of 250,000 packets. A team from the Customs and Excise National Investigation Service (NIS) had been following developments after a container ship docked at Felixstowe in Suffolk and they eventually intercepted the load in Granton, Edinburgh. Eight people have been arrested and one man has been charged and released on bail. [continues 283 words]
THE Government's drugs tsar, Keith Hellawell, was yesterday forced to defend Government policy as Fife's chief constable warned alcohol was a greater menace in Scottish society. During the launch of a drive to raise awareness of alcohol problems with school-age teenagers, Chief Constable James Hamilton said alcohol abuse was a far greater problem than drug abuse. Its effects were spread over several decades in contrast to the short-term effects of drugs. Last week, Henry McLeish, the Scottish home affairs minister, said drug abuse was the greatest evil facing society. [continues 480 words]
Inside Scotland
